Pages

Friday, April 19, 2013

To the Wonder (opens April 19th in Cleveland exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[ TO THE WONDER opens in Cleveland on Friday April 19th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Generally speaking an artist should
follow their muse wherever it may lead. In the case of director
Terrence Malick, however, his muse seems to have led him straight up
his own posterior. There's a fine
line between rich, complex, and challenging works like Malick's DAYS
OF HEAVEN, THE THIN
RED LINE, and THE NEW
WORLD, and utter self-indulgent
pretentiousness. It's a line Malick first crossed for me in his
previous film, 2011's THE TREE OF LIFE.
He crosses it again, and even more egregiously, in TO THE
WONDER.

The film begins
with impressionistic images of Marina (Olga Kurylenko) and Neil (Ben
Affleck), a couple who have just met and fallen in love. Over the
visuals, Marina offers breathy narration in French in which she says
things like, “love makes us one, I in you, you in me.” The
relationship progresses, and eventually Marina and her daughter
Tatiana (Tatiana Chilline) come to live in Oklahoma with Neil. Things
seem to be going well, but Tatiana senses that something is missing.

Evidently so, as
when Marina's visa runs out Neil doesn't even see her Tatiana off to
the airport. It doesn't take Neil long to hook up with Jane (Rachael
McAdams), a farm girl he used to be in love with. Eventually that
goes south as well, opening the door for Marina to come back into
Neil's life, but this time as his wife. Meanwhile, local priest
Father Quintana (Javier Bardem) is having a crisis of faith, finding
himself no longer able to connect with his God.

For about two
hours, these characters meander about whispering their dialogue as we
see little snapshots of their lives. It's all shot beautifully, but
as gorgeous as the film looks it doesn't take long to become tedious,
and at times even laughable. Malick has his female cast members spin
and cavort at the drop of a hat (almost invariably while wearing
cardigans) so often that it becomes ridiculous. Perhaps making a
drinking game out of the film would make it go by more pleasantly
(she's spinning – take a drink!). Just be sure you don't have to
drive anywhere for a while after. And then there's the scene where
Marina gets relationship advice from her friend Anna (Romina
Mondello) who shouts and gesticulates while offering up such gems as,
“Life's a dream. In dream you can't make mistakes. In dream you can
be whatever you want.”

The
central theme of TO THE WONDER
is that love changes and fades and transforms over time. The film
illustrates that well through the romantic love between Marina and
Neil, the maternal love between Marina and Tatiana, and the spiritual
love between Father Quintana and his God. The problem is we feel no
connection with any of these characters as real human beings. Without
that, why care? In turn that makes it harder to overlook the way all
the relationships in the film just go from one state to another
without us ever seeing the reasons why. One minute Neil and Marina
are in love; the next they're smashing their furniture. The result is
a pretty looking film with a potentially interesting theme that is
unlikely to engage the interest of most viewers enough to get its
ideas across. 2 out of 4 stars.